Tim Burton to Attack 'Sleeping Beauty' Next?

There's a new rumor going around -- one that teeters very delicately on the fence between adoration and fear. But either way you fall, don't hold your breath because it's still very much a rumor: Harry over at AICN was talking with a contact who said that Tim Burton isn't done with Disney fairy tales, and now wants to zero in on Sleeping Beauty.

Of course, the most beautiful girl in the land dancing and singing "Once Upon a Dream" isn't really the sort of theme Burton is usually attracted to. So, what's the deal? Supposedly, he doesn't want to focus on Aurora, but rather the other woman of the tale, the one I raved about just a few months ago: Maleficent. In "a quasi Live Actiony kinda way," Burton is said to want to tell the imposing woman's story from her point of view and call the project, aptly, Maleficent.

Part of me is excited by the idea of Burton taking a stab at horned one's life and giving us his thoughts on why she's the baddie -- what created the rift with the round and bubbly fairies and Aurora's parents. But the other part worries that this would be too much of an event. At times Burton himself is so larger than life that his presence and vision is almost a character in his films, and the only way I see Maleficent truly reigning on the big screen is in a form where that's diminished.

But maybe the better question should be: Do you want to see Helena Bonham Carter playing Maleficent?